Impossible Rhythms

I saw a ridiculous clip on YouTube today.

It wasn’t jazz-related.

It wasn’t even music-related.

The clip was of Tom Cruise riding a motorcycle off a cliff and then parachuting to safety – a stunt for his next Mission Impossible movie (who’s going with me?!).

Anyway, Tom’s cliff jump reminded me of how I explain rhythmic syncopation to my students…

Whenever an upbeat is emphasized, as in the phrase below...

..it feels like you’ve just jumped off a cliff and are falling in midair. This is because there is no downbeat to “catch” you.

These types of rhythms tend to screw people up. They lose the beat; they lose the tempo; they lose the form.

Now, let's compare that phrase with this:

Here, the emphasized upbeat is “grounded” by the following downbeat, which makes the rhythm more stable and less syncopated.

But syncopation is cool, and we don’t always want to have the following downbeat there to break our fall.

So how do we keep the syncopation and survive the musical cliff jump?

Well, I developed a trick that works so well that it's effective for musicians of all levels and for rhythms of all difficulties.

I wish I figured this one out sooner. Would have saved me a whole lot of struggle in my younger years.

Anyway, if you'd like to discover this rhythm hack for yourself and learn a ton of other game-changing tools, tips, and techniques, check out my newest course: Phrasing Secrets. It's appropriate for all instruments, and you can save 30% when you enroll before Sunday, October 4 with the code PHRASING30.

https://go.jeffschneidermusic.com/phrasing-secrets-course

Jeff